To law enforcement officials Figueroa was known as the Pablo Escobar of the Caribbean, and was wanted for allegedly moving cocaine through the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, and into the United States. Last September, he was nearly arrested in the Dominican Republic but escaped, and police there found his armored Mercedes with $4.6 million in cash inside. According to US Marshal Antonio Torres, when Figueroa was arrested yesterday, ''We asked him his name, and he simply answered that we knew who he was.''

Figueroa's 209-year prison sentence was for killing a man who stole one of his cocaine shipments. In 1999, four years into his sentence, Figueroa escaped from the prison in Puerto Rico using a forged release order. And in December, he called into a Dominican radio show offering $800,000 to anyone who killed one of two high ranking police officers there.

After Figueroa's arrest yesterday, DEA special agent Javier Pena had a very cop-like public service announcement: ''We have a message for fugitives: Sooner or later you will be caught.''